The No B.S. Blueprint To Setting Up Your Online Education Business

If you are creating content on a regular basis but you aren’t getting clients (and it feels like no one is listening)...

I’m willing to bet that you skipped over at least one crucial step (of setting up your education business the right way).

It’s really tough to know exactly what to focus on and in what order. There are so many choices and different strategies.

When I first entered the online education space, it was like drinking from a firehose.

I was listening to 10 different gurus and trying to synthesize all the information from each of them and sort out what mattered, what didn’t, and even more important, what ORDER I was supposed to do it all in.

Complete overwhelm.

I’ll be real with you: Focusing on the wrong thing at the wrong time will cause you to fail. Your business might never take off. You might never make money or make a difference.

It’s that important. You need to learn how to line the dominoes up in the right order before you knock them down.

Everyone will tell you that you need to get followers, grow your list, start your FB group, learn paid ads, or hire them for marketing or sales.

All of that is noise, and it’s preventing you from figuring this out.

Today I’m going to show you the roadmap. The blueprint. The order in which the dominoes must be knocked down.

Please save this post and come back to it as you build your education business. I’ve been there and back. Invested multiple six figures into programs and masterminds. Paid for all the programs I didn’t need.

Made multi six figures but with the wrong coaching business, and then with the right one.

I’m here to save you those headaches and avoid those dead ends.

This post is going to show you the roadmap at a high level, but it’s not going to tell you how to do each piece. That would be an entire book.

You need to see where you’re going first. If you need help with a specific piece let me know, and I can find posts that I’ve written where I go deep on that one thing.

So here is what you’ve been searching for, the no B.S., easy-to-understand, step-by-step blueprint of setting up your online education biz in the right way.

THE BLUEPRINT

Step #1 - Define Your Ideal Client

Who is the type of person you would love to work with? (This is often the same type of person you’d most like to have as a friend). You’re looking for external labels here, like Dads or entrepreneurs, because then you’ll know where to find them online.

All your marketing will be speaking directly to this person, so you have to not only know exactly who they are, but you should really LIKE them too (because when you succeed they will become your clients and you’ll spend a lot of time with them).

Step #2 - Choose Your Niche

What niche are you going to help people in?

Real estate? Sales? Mindset? Fitness?

People often make the mistake of choosing the thing they have the best track record in, not the thing they are the most excited about today.

How do you know you’ve chosen the right niche?

You picked something that you care about so much that it is represented in the way you personally spend your time.

Step #3 - Define Your Outcome

The difference between niche and outcome is simply this:

Your niche might be “fitness” whereas the outcome might be “I help people lose 20 pounds in 90 days by learning to workout at home with kettlebells”.

So you are looking within the niche and saying “what part of it do I really believe in and think my client needs? What do I believe in so much that I do it myself? What outcome can I honestly speak to with confidence?”

There’s a lot more to unpack there, but just know that your offer should a) be very specific, b) be true to what you can actually deliver on, and c) be something you wholeheartedly believe your clients need.

Lastly, you’ll need to package up your offer nicely. Define 3-6 pillars or modules you’ll take them through in order to get the outcome.

Before I go on to the next step, let me say this: You must get as clear and specific as possible on the above 3 steps before anything else.

These things are the ingredients that go INTO your marketing. They inform every single thing you say and do from here on out.

Most coaches either a) aren’t clear on at least one of the above 3, or b) have made a wrong choice somewhere.

Step #4 - Create Your Delivery Model

Will you coach 1:1 or in a group? How long is your program? How much does it cost? Will you incorporate an online course and/or documentation to assist with the teaching?

Think “what would be the absolute best for my client?” and make your decision based upon that.

Step #5 - Choose Your Content Strategy

Now that you know your ideal client and the outcome you want to create for them as well as how you’ll deliver it, you need to go tell people about it!

This is marketing. You are talking to people and starting conversations.

(This is where most coaches start their journey, and skip over everything else. Now you can see why they are flailing)

Choose the format (audio, video, or text) that you enjoy creating the most.

Choose the platform that your ideal client hangs out on that also makes the most sense for your format.

Oh, and you need to learn how to speak to your ideal client’s pains & desires in the openings of your content. Otherwise they won’t listen.

You need to show that you’re an expert by helping them in your content, then end it with a clear and concise call-to-action for them to take the next steps to join your program.

A lot to unpack there, but that’s the gist of it.

Step #5 - Build Your Sales Process

Once a conversation has started via your marketing, what will you do from there? Are you taking it to DM’s? Zoom calls? What do you say in those DM’s or on those calls? Do you do one short qualification call followed by a longer enrollment call? A free strategy session?

It’s important to pick one of these and create a sales process that you can test and track, instead of just being open to “doing whatever”.

Don’t overthink this step, but put something together and stick to it for a few months. The questions you ask in DM’s and on the calls are a lot more important than exactly how you structure the points of contact themselves.

Step #6 - Create Your Daily Routine

I live by my daily routine. I use a simple spreadsheet that tells me everything I need to do each day, so there’s no guesswork.

Most of the activities are marketing or sales related. It could be “writing a post, adding new friends, replying to messages, check in with clients”, things like that.

I much prefer operating off of a checklist versus sitting down and trying to remember everything I want to do. A simple, fun, daily routine is the container that holds everything else and keeps you on track.

The other work that I’ve described is more “project based” meaning you’d complete the project of “defining your ideal client” or “creating your offer”.

Here I’m referring to the repeatable work you do ongoing.

It’s important to understand the difference between project work and task work and have organization around that. This is why I included the daily routine in the blueprint.

That’s the entire blueprint. This is what you need to do and in what order. If you want to create a business that you love (and that succeeds), that is.

Once you accept the importance of each step in this blueprint, you’ll buckle down and do the tough work to set your business up in the right way. Then, marketing and sales get WAY easier because you know exactly who you’re speaking to and what you want to say and what you can do for people, what your ideal client looks like, what you are not an expert in, who you don’t want as clients, all of that.

Trust me, it’s worth it to follow the process. It makes things easier in the long run.

Executing every step of this blueprint is exactly what we do in my 6 week 1:1 coaching program that takes successful entrepreneurs who want to break into the education business and gives them the roadmap to set the business up so that it will not only succeed financially but also give them the outlet to create the impact they crave.

This blueprint is the program, yet we go very deep into each step to make sure you’ve set it up in the right way before moving on. So that you don’t have to take years (and waste thousands of dollars) figuring it out on your own.

If this sounds interesting to you, shoot me a DM and we can have a conversation over Messenger to see if it’s a fit or not. If so, we can get you started within 1 week.